I know better than to read Slate Magazine. Really, I do. I’m well aware that most of the articles are infuriatingly contrarian arguments that some wannabe intellectuals give credence to solely because the pretentious writer knows his or her way around some SAT words. Nevertheless, Warming Glow readers occasionally send me a link to something particularly annoying, and that’s the case with this treatise on why box sets of TV shows are bad.
There is a lot — a LOT — to hate in this essay, from little things like the writer’s name (Grady Hendrix) to larger faults like painfully hyperbolic metaphors. Twice (three times if you count the headline) he compares watching box sets of TV series to a prison sentence, another time, a “gulag.” But I don’t have the time to deconstruct the whole thing, so here’s the only sentence you need to read:
As a gateway drug to initiate virgin viewers, all box sets do is proclaim that the emperor has no clothes.
This is my promise to you, readers: if anyone ever catches a sentence I’ve written on Warming Glow that combines Hendrix’s use of mixed metaphors and pretentiousness without any irony, I will film myself punching myself in the balls and post it on this website.
Box sets kick ass. It’s how I watched “The Wire” over two months one winter, it’s how I caught Season 1 of “Mad Men’ before Season 2 started, it’s a great way to watch my favorite “Simpsons” episodes, it allows me to experience the visual delight of Discovery’s “Planet Earth” whenever I want… do I need to go on?
The notion that box sets are a “prison” because other people expect you to watch their favorite TV shows could only be held by someone too mentally weak to say, “No thanks.”
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i love The Office
I do see what he means in the first third of the article; giving someone a monumental undertaking like “LOST” on DVD and expecting them to absorb it all at once the way the giver absorbed it over 7 years is asking a lot of a person, in the same way that giving someone a super-pretentious, intellectual book used to be.
Then he seemed to indicate that watching less TV made the guy healthier, and I thought, “Fuck off, I’ll sit on my ass all I want thanks very much you pretentious dickhead”
“you are”, even. and christopher hitchens is an unintelligent cumrag.
“The fact that someone gets paid – let alone paid in real American dollars – to write crap like this is one of the reasons why the terrorists hate us.”
no, the terrorists hate you because you a livestock that meekly appease the owner/operator of whatever website you are on in the hopes that you will be ‘cool’.
you won’t be. warmingglow sucks just as much if not more than slate.
You people are awful. The Hendrix family were the advisors to the emperor of the Filipeens.
I don’t know why he is saying box sets are new. I am not agreed with him at all.
I think I’ll buy the boxed set of “Six Feet Under” and send this guy the bill.
And there they were, stacked up on the other side of the room as menacing and oppressive as the Berlin Wall: Seasons 1, 2, and 3 of Lost, five seasons of The Wire, 16 hours of Foyle’s War, Mad Men, The Sopranos, Nip/Tuck, and Prison Break. The most critically acclaimed television series of our time—now on DVD!—looming over him like grim death
Good Lord. Tripe is not even the word.
This guy didn’t figure out that every single episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm is pretty much the same until he watched several in a row. I don’t understand why we’re supposed to think he’s smart.
Grady Hendrix is the sort of snake in the grass that is gnawing at the foundations of our ship of state.
I tried to read the article but only made it to:
“There he was, slumped on the sofa like a dead body in a vacant lot, looking like a man who already saw the vultures circling.”
I have been trying figure out if he looked dead or if he was looking at vultures ever since.
In his spare time between pounding scotch and being awesome, Christopher Hitchens should teach his a-hole colleague a thing or two about effective prose.
Apparently Ufford also linked to that in the sex-bag. That’s my thing that I say! I feel like I’m going to explode here! (shakes violently)*
*for reference, see The Simpsons Season 6 DVD, disc 4
Congratulations Mr. Hendrix, you’ve somehow written a criticism that even Neely Tucker would find moronic.
In Grady Hendrix’s defense (holy shit, even typing that name makes me angry), I asked a Russian grandmother who was in a WWII Gulag if her time there was worse than being forced to watch Season 2 of “I Dream of Jeanie”
She chased me down the dirt road with a dead racoon, but I think I understood what she meant.
As a gateway drug to initiate virgin viewers, all box sets do is proclaim that the emperor has no clothes.
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
this is why some people need to be made into sausage
Why that pretentious, pompous popinjay! *shakes fist*
Shit that made me dizzy, I need to go lie down.
@Burnsy: I think he’s saying if people watch television in concentrated form, they’ll realize that much faster what shit most of it is and go play XBox instead. It’s either that or it’s a code phrase aimed at his connections for crystal meth and underage Filipino boys.
Thank you, Matt, for articulating why I hate Slate so much. I’ve never gotten past “Smug bad! Rebecca smash!”
that excellent article on “Parks and Recreation”
…which was written by the same guy who defended the musical worth of — in two separate articles — Creed and Limp Bizkit.
I’m a smart fucking dude, but…
As a gateway drug to initiate virgin viewers, all box sets do is proclaim that the emperor has no clothes.
Somebody please tell me what the hell this shit means?
“I smiled inwardly. Here was a man who had been plunged into the valley of the shadow, been tempted by a host of DVD boxed sets, resisted their grim ministrations, and come out the better for it. Perhaps, then, there is a value to these things, after all. Boxed sets of Rescue Me and Dexter might not actually be designed for entertainment but may instead be crucibles that test our souls with fire, and like escapees from the gulag we emerge from the inferno with our wills forged into steel.”
My eyes just started to bleed out. The fact that someone gets paid – let alone paid in real American dollars – to write crap like this is one of the reasons why the terrorists hate us. And on this point, they’re right. I’d gladly celebrate in the streets if 19 terrorists took out Slate and its bloviating idiot writers once and for all…
My life had no purpose until July 18th, 2006. Then “The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. – The Complete Series” arrived on dvd. Swallow a fat one, Grady.
some of my friends have good taste. so, like, when they recommend stuff i watch it. and everything i recommend to people is genius, and i am genius so they should be effing grateful to be in a prison made up of the fantastic programs i cram down their throats.
also, grow a backbone dude. if you don’t like it. stop watching. you think im ever going to finish season three of dexter? not likely.
To be fair to Slate, they did have that excellent article on “Parks and Recreation”
“the pretentious writer knows his or her way around some SAT words.”
Ah yes, you mean Chuck Klosterman.
He tells people not to buy other people box sets as gifts. I’m sure they’ll accept “Instead of getting you a gift, just watch House on Wednesdays (I think?) on Fox for free.”
As eager as I am to start sifting through the archives in hope of forcing Ufford to cock-knock himself, I should probably get to work. But why the hell would I be bothered if someone provided me the opportunity to watch hours and hours of free entertainment at my own sole discretion? Isn’t that exactly the same way that regular TV works?
Why does he think Box Sets are new?
The Wire jumped the wire when this happened: http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2009/11/02/podcast-the-wire-s-kima-bubbles-and-omar-at-harvard.aspx. Also, f*k 5 mics, my fire burn a wire. ALSO, everyone knows that its “omar coming” and not “omar’s coming.” I HATE LIFE
/punches Grady Hendrix
//waits for season 1, disc 1 of mad men to arrive in the mail
Seriously, fuck this guy. Box sets are the only way I get to re-watch Arrested Development.